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By guest contributors Kim Dalton and Rachel Rodrigues

The New Year brings new opportunities to set goals and raise the bar for strategic priorities. For many women leaders, looking ahead means thinking about new ways to accelerate their careers and relationships in the workplace.

EY explored the issue of gender parity in Women. Fast forward: the time for gender parity is now, which finds that optimizing talent makes sheer economic sense. The global economy is driven by sustainable value and business growth, which depend on attracting, optimizing and retaining top talent. Every organization’s best economic interest is to maintain diverse teams, and that includes capitalizing on the talents of women.

For women looking to put their talents to the greatest use and catapult their careers in 2016, we suggest focusing on developing these habits:

Be confident

Confidence is the most important trait of an effective leader. Women and men alike need to move past their fears and embrace self-assurance. Taking ownership of your skills, abilities and decisions can help you take purposeful action and push the boundaries for growing your business. Leading with confidence provides a feeling of trust and demonstrates to your employees and your peers that you’re focused on making responsible decisions for the business — with your team’s best interests at heart.

Don’t be afraid of networking

Actively developing personal and professional networks can offer women valuable sounding boards for career advice and personal growth. Building a network to share experiences can provide you with encouragement, support and guidance along your leadership journey. Either your fellow leaders have been there before or are going through a similar experience and can add valuable advice and insights around challenging business problems.

Value innovation

Innovation is a strategic imperative for any organization. To be a successful leader, you can’t be afraid to venture out of your comfort zone, do things differently and explore new ideas and suggestions from your team. Women offer valuable perspectives and approaches to the ideation process that can result in more innovative solutions to complex problems. Exploring varying viewpoints and insights can enable more effective problem-solving that can ultimately lead to greater strategic alignment for your organization. Don’t be afraid to voice new ideas that may seem risky.

Stay optimistic

Strong leaders know failure and loss are inherent in doing business. How you respond in times of difficulty, uncertainty and failure will demonstrate your character to those you’re leading. Maintaining a positive attitude and continuing a relentless pursuit of your goals will demonstrate to high-performing teams that you never give up. As an influential leader, you’ll need to stay determined and not let temporary difficulties hinder you from achieving your goals or fulfilling your purpose.

Find the right balance

For many women — and men — there’s an ongoing battle between juggling competing demands at work and home. Both are important and deserve our attention, but it’s critical to realize it’s about balance and integration. As a leader, you may have to be available at some times that you wouldn’t want to be otherwise, but remember that everyone needs to have some time “off the clock.” Having a support system, which may include coworkers, your partner, extended family or friends, can be a tremendous resource when you get caught with conflicting commitments.

Women represent an important source of leadership talent, and accelerating your career can be a great way to hone your talents strengths while charting a path to the top.